


violets are blue

by mildlydiscouraging



Series: phan week 2015 [8]
Category: Video Blogging RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Flower Shop, M/M, Meet-Cute
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-22
Updated: 2015-11-22
Packaged: 2018-05-02 22:38:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,251
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5266424
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mildlydiscouraging/pseuds/mildlydiscouraging
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There's a boy who buys flowers from him.</p><p>Dan's a florist, so it makes sense. A lot of people buy flowers from him. But there's not a lot who buy flowers as frequently as this boy does, and even less so that buy flowers <i>for</i> him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	violets are blue

**Author's Note:**

> are you tired of florist aus??? TOO BAD. phan week day eight is ~wildcard~ so this is what you get!

There's a boy who buys flowers from him.

Dan's a florist, so it makes sense. A lot of people buy flowers from him. But there's not a lot who buy flowers as frequently as this boy does, and even less so that buy flowers _for_ him.

The boy's name is Phil. (Philip, technically, but he jokes about how Philip means "lover of horses" and how much he's afraid of them as he signs his receipt and that "Phil's more my speed." For a second he looks as though he's about to wink before thinking better of it and handing back the receipt.) He's cute, Dan has to admit, and whenever he walks in the store Dan stands up a little straighter and smiles a little wider.

A part of that has to do with what Phil always does when he buys whichever flowers he's after that day. He always picks one out of the dozen daisies or tulips or even roses, that one time (a friend in a play, not a date, not that Dan particularly cares) and places it gently in the cup of pens next to the register.

"Does anyone ever buy _you_ flowers?" He asks the first time he comes in (daisies, for his mother's birthday, Dan learns quickly that he's not good at remembering dates or much of anything).

"Not really," Dan says as he pulls at the receipt jammed in the printer. "Everyone assumes since I spend all day around them that I'm sick of them, like people who work in coffee shops all day not being able to stand the smell afterwards, when really it's the opposite and I work here so long because I love flowers, I guess."

He doesn't say anything about hiding in the courtyard during lunch at school and sending flowers to people who never really knew what they meant, watching buds bloom only to wilt in the garbage. He doesn't say any of that, but he feels like he could.

Phil leans forward with his elbows on the counter. "Me neither. Are you one of those super nerdy people who know what all the flowers symbolize then?"

After he smacks the side of the machine a few times it starts spitting out paper and Dan shrugs as he hands Phil the receipt to sign. "Well, yeah, I guess. For example, daisies symbolize love and innocence, so good for mums' birthdays." He takes back the slip of paper and trades him the bouquet. "Put that on your card."

Thankfully Phil laughs and says, "I just think they look happy, but that works too."

Dan nods his head in agreement, just glad he didn't make a complete fool out of himself, and can only blink as Phil takes one of the daisies from the bunch and sets it in the cup with the pen he'd used.

"You look like you could do with some happiness," he explains, "and it's a shame no one ever gives you flowers."

He walks out after that and honestly Dan would've been fine if he never came back (well, he'd be sad, but he'd at least have the cute story) but he does over and over. It's always some birthday or apology or congratulation or anniversary (never any of his own or anything romantic, Dan's just happened to notice) to the point where Phil's in the shop almost every day.

One Thursday, a few months after that first visit, Phil comes in and makes a beeline for the refrigerated case of roses near the back. He pulls a bouquet from the back, where Dan's taught him the freshed flowers hide, but ends up replacing it again and again until he finds one he seems to deem perfect. He's wearing his nice red jacket, Dan can't help but notice, and his hair is painfully neat in a way it never is. He looks purposeful in a way he usually doesn't/

"Looking for something specific?" Dan jokes, but it falls flat when he sees the anxious knit of Phil's eyebrows.

"You could say that." The plastic around the flowers crinkles loud enough to fill the room as Phil wrings his hands anxiously around them and approaches the register.

"Friend in another play? Break another fish bowl?" Dan starts punching in the number for the right arrangement, but slowly to hopefully give him time to figure out what's wrong.

Phil laughs halfheartedly and worries the edge of the sticker on the counter before correcting him. "No, um, a date."

The screen reads about three 5's too many as Dan's finger sticks to the key. "Oh?"

"Hopefully," Phil adds. "I haven't asked him yet."

All of a sudden Dan wants nothing more than to fast forward through everything, speed up what he'd just tried to slow down. "That's... nice," he says as he hands Phil the receipt and pen with his own hands shaking a little this time. His chest feels heavy, the same way it had when he knocked a bag of dirt off the top shelf in the storage room and he was out of breath for the next two hours.

It feels a little better and also a little worse when Phil pulls out one of the roses still and nestles it in with the pens. After Phil had started coming around, Dan bought a new mug, taller so the flowers didn't fall out, but still not tall enough that the long-stemmed red rose ( _long-stemmed and red, Dan, of course, you taught him well_ ) hangs half out of the mug still and flops awkwardly over the side.

Dan's so busy empathizing with a flower that he doesn't notice Phil continue to pull out flowers until the entire dozen is interspersed among the mismatched pens.

"Why-?"

Phil rearranges them until the pens are all around the edge, propping up the roses until they all stand up straight.

"Not as good as your arrangement, but still," Phil says. It's been a good five minutes and he still won't look up from the flowers.

Dan can't think of anything more to say other than "what" over and over in his head, but Phil grabs the receipt from the printer and takes his own pen out of his pocket to scribble something on the bottom and leave. That Dan can process faster, and he doesn't even bother to read the string of numbers at the bottom before he's running out the front door and the few feet down the street to as far as Phil's gotten. He doesn't stop running quite fast enough and runs into Phil's shoulder, not the way he'd ever thought this would go in the five million times it had come up in his daydreams.

In the two seconds between when he picked up the note and ran out the door, his brain had thought to grab one of the roses and now held it out to Phil.

" _You_ bought me flowers," he says, and it doesn't quite make sense and there's no context but Phil takes the flower anyway, staring at it like he's never even seen a flower before, and Dan could count his eyelashes this close.

He does, for a moment, and Dan gets distracted until the look on Phil's face changes until he looks like he gets it. Phil looks away from the rose's half open petals and leans up an inch to kiss him, and it feels like everything's on fire in the best way possible, and Dan understands why roses are red.

**Author's Note:**

> rip phan week 2015, i miss u already
> 
> tumblr @[dweebhowell](http://dweebhowell.tumblr.com)


End file.
